Irish
in Iowa Surname of the Month - MAR. 2002Each month a new
surname will be randomly picked from our surnames researcher pages.
Contributions of information to these pages gratefully accepted. Perhaps your
surname will be chosen next.

KANE,
KAIN, KEAN, KEANE, KEENE

Kane and O'Kane
are the most common anglicised version of the Irish Ó Catháin, from a
diminutive of cath, meaning 'battle'. Kane and O'Kane are most frequent in
Ulster, where Ó Catháin arose as a surname in the Laggan district of east
Donegal, as part of the Cinéal Eoghain, the large group of families descended
from Eoghan, son of Niall of the Nine Hostages, the fifth-century monarch who
founded the Uí Néill dynasty and was supposedly responsible for the kidnapping
of St. Patrick to Ireland. In the twelfth century these Ulster Ó Catháin
conquered a large territory to the east of their original homeland around
Coleraine and Keenaght in what is now Co. Derry, and remained powerful and
important in that area down to the wars in the seventeenth century. Their last
chief died in the Tower of London in 1628. Two other common surnames McClosky
and McAvinney, are offshoots of Ó Catháin. Kane remains particularly common in
the Coleraine district of Co. Derry, and in the adjoining county of
Antrim.---Clans and Families of Ireland; John Grenham

IRELAND

INDEX
TO PREROGATIVE wILLS OF IRELAND
Note that often times further information can be found on these people
in Sir William Betham's Abstracts (see LDS film)